Flamma Memoris
by DocFry
Summary: The girl awoke in a dead field of flowers. The girls did not know who she was. But she felt three things: sadness. love. self-loathing. And she knew, whether or not she wanted to, that she must find out who she is, who she was, and who she may become.
1. Chapter 1

The girl awoke in a dead city.

The girl awoke in her bed, and noticed that she was not in her room. She was lying in her bed, but her bed was in a field, a field of dead, tangled flowers.

The girl tried to remember what happened before she fell asleep. Violence. Pain. Despair. The gnashing of teeth and the steps of marching armies.

She remembered being beheaded. She lifted her hands to her face, and felt it was still there.

_Of course it's still there. I'm thinking, aren't I?_

The girl sat up, and took notice of her dress. It was a rather simple one: black, ankle-length, slightly-puffed shoulders. She tried to remember more.

_Sadness. Confusion. Loneliness. Monsters. Sadness… Darkness… Despair… _

_Self-loathing._

The girl laid back down onto her pillow, and looked out to her left. The sky was a dark red, the clouds black. The water appeared dark, as if the night sky missing its moon and stars had covered the Earth.

She looked at the foot of her bed. Standing next to her bed was a chair. To its left was a chair knocked over. Looking at the chairs filled her with a chaos of emotions: love, joy, contentment, pain, sadness, misery…

Self-loathing.

_Sadness and self-loathing… why does it keep going back to that?_

A curious bird sat down onto one of the chairs. It seemed unnatural: large head, dead eyes, an appearance that looked more drawn than natural.

_Who are you?_

Homura was shocked. _Did that bird just speak? How can a bird speak? And…_

…_my name is Homura._

_Homura. What a nice name. Sounds like an anime character._

_Huh?_

_You know, like the name of a character from some dark deconstruction of some sort. _

_I don't understand._

_You do not have to understand. It is best that you do not understand._

_Why? Would it explain why everything seems so dead?_

_No. Because you will understand why you feel…_

…_sadness and self-loathing._

Homura sat up again. After scanning her surroundings one more time, she got out of bed. She decided that she would go over to the chairs. She did, and saw that the fallen chair had two red ribbons hanging off of it.

_Red ribbons…_

_Pain. Loneliness. Self-loathing. Despair._

_Love._

_Love?_

…_love._

She did not know why, but she thought of love when she saw the ribbons. Love of the kind you have for your siblings. Love of the kind you have for a lover. Love of the kind between friends. Love unconditional. Love…

…_but not for the Divine._

A girl. She thought of a girl. She couldn't quite imagine her image, but she thought of a girl. She became awash in all of these feelings about this girl.

_Love. Pain. Isolation. Love. Sadness. Despair. Love. Futility. Recursion. Love. Love…_

…_self-loathing._

_Why do I feel love for this girl, but also self-loathing?_

She began her walk to the city. She did not know why. She just knew that she had to. She must find out who she was. She knew her name. She knew that she felt sadness, love, and self-loathing above all things. But even more importantly, she felt that she had to find out this girl's name, this girl that she felt sadness, love, and self-loathing about. She brought the red ribbons with her.

_Red ribbons… love… sadness…_

_Fear._

She felt fear. Fear not just in recalling the ribbons, but she felt that she was no longer alone. To a bench she ran, and she got up on it, more to get away from the no longer safe ground than to scan the surroundings. She noticed it, then: a simple rodent. A white rat with big red eyes. A rat, and nothing more. But when she saw the white fur, the red eyes…

_Hate. Hate. I feel hate. Hate. Hate. Hate._

Did she hate rats? No, she thought that they were cute. But why did she hate this rat?

_The eyes… the white fur…_

…

…_hate. Fury. Anger. Trickery. Lies. Unfeeling. Alien. outsider._

_Incubator._

She remembered, then. There was something like a rodent, with red eyes and white fur. It was a rodent, yet it was not from this world. And she knew that it was…

…_evil? No… worse… unfeeling, uncaring save for everything but itself._

She felt that she must run. So she did. She ran without knowing where she was running, but she felt that her legs were carrying her to a place where she had to be. She came before a fork in the road. A tall townhouse stood before her.

_Home?_

She went up to the door. It opened. She stepped in, and looked around. A large room. A circular, red couch. Images. Images floating everywhere. Were they real, or a manifestation of her mind? She looked at them, and she remembered. She remembered the others. She remembered the monsters, both spectral and alien. She remembered… she remembered…

She remembered her.

Homura, upon remembering her, collapsed down onto her knees. She did not remember everything, but she remembered enough. Her hands went up to her face as she shook, and she felt her eyes burst forth. She was crying. Why? Why was she crying?

_I… remember… others, and her… and her… and her…_

…_her…_

…_love… pain… self-loathing…_

…_loneliness._

Homura screamed.


	2. The Chapter that proceeds Remembrance

_Anxiety._

She thought to herself, over and over.

_What is this anxiety? I remember, but yet… I don't._

_Anxiety. Sadness. Guilt. Love._

A gap. A dream. This must be what this is – a dream, an attempt to sort through the gaps in one's unconscious recollection.

In an effort to realize the nature of her dream, Homura went to the rooftop, and without a second thought, leapt off… and was suddenly overcame with the feeling that this was not the first time she did this.

She fell the short distance from the roof to the floor below - and stopped just short of the ground. She did not hit the floor. She did not expire. So this has got to be a dream.

_Not yet._

A voice. Yet another dweller in the dream. This one, however, was human - or at least, had the semblance of a human.

Her skin was eerily pale. Her dark hair was of great length, nearly reaching her ankles, and was done in two long braided tails. On the topic of her skin again, most of it was visible; for whatever reason, the girl was nearly completely naked. She wore a white skirt that went down to her knees, and a loose black robe covered most of her upper half. Her eyes were closed always. When she spoke, it was as if sound followed the movement of her lips after a delay.

_You are not yet ready. You must know._

_Know what?_

_You must know why things are the way they are._

_Why? Why must I know? From what I can tell so far, knowing will only bring me more feelings. Sadness. Love. Self-loathing. I don't want to feel these things._

_Even love?_

…

…_come. Find the reason for all that is. Find the purpose that gives you existence, whether that be from yourself or from others. _

_I don't understand._

_But you will. Come; everything must be illuminated._

Homura found herself upright once again, her feet barely touching the ground.

_Why should I follow you?_

_Because I am you._

_What?_

_I am she and she is we and you are she. We are all together._

_Are you toying with me? Why?_

_I am not toying with you. Come, and you will understand. Everything will be illuminated._

_Illuminated?_

_Yes, illuminated._

The girl turned and began to walk… no, it was more like float, away. Her feet touched the ground, but the movement of her body implied gliding more than movement of legs. Homura, compelled by a force unknown - was it the girl, or did her own will make her follow? Regardless, she followed.

The girl walked, and floated, and glided, and Homura followed suit. When they came to the river, the girl just took steps on air across; to Homura's surprise, she did as well, and as she looked below into her faint reflection on the water's surface, she saw more than Homura. She saw someone else. But she could not tell who it was.

The girl came before the school. Her school. Homura's school.

The illumination shall begin here. Come.

And Homura, by her own will or the will of another, came.

They entered the school, and as they walked the hallways, Homura began to think. She began to remember. She did not remember solid memories: she remembered shapes, forms, feelings, emotions, but not faces, names, or personalities. Most of the emotions and feelings were negative: she felt like a fool. She felt no worth of being there, and grew weary of being there. She could sense a thousand unseen eyes pierce into her soul, stripping away her field of emotional security, and violating her soul with their judgments.

But yet, whether through a guiding hand or her own psyche, she went on. And on she went, further and further still into the school. Was the school always this large?

After what seemed like an eternity, a thousand years of wandering those hallways, Homura came before a classroom. She knew it on sight. It was her own.

_Now, we go in, and we shall begin our illumination. We shall pursue who you are here. We shall determine, or begin to determine, who exactly am I, and you, and she. We shall discover here this person known to the world as Akemi Homura._

_Akemi?_

_Yes, that is your surname. Wonderful, isn't it? You sound like someone that belongs in a story of the supernatural, like you belong in a dark story of trial and suffering… and you very well may be. Now sit._

Homura came before a seat. Her seat. She sat down in it, and at once, the memories came back. Colors. Shapes. Emotions.

Akemi Homura, sitting in her seat in her class, began to cry, then. She cried for the remembrance of who she was. She cried for the remembrance of what she became. And she cried for the remembrance of what she was to become.


	3. Beginning of Unification of the Three

She began to remember then. She saw herself, or what she thought was herself, at the front of the class. Homura then noted that what had been an unusually dark night had become the bright morning. This Homura that she saw at the front of the class was the Homura of what seemed lifetimes ago: timid. Shy. Long raven hair in braids. Her stuttering voice, her bespectacled eyes. All of it screamed of an acute sense of nervousness and anxiety. Homura also saw the images of her teacher, and of her classmates. She could see the teacher's face much more clearly, but the faces of the students were as of looking through glass: she could not make them out. But she could make out what the faces conveyed: mockery. Cruelty. Hate.

Hate.

_Hate._

_**HATE**_

Her arms went to clutch at her chest, her heart pounding with emotions. She began to breathe heavily.

_That's right. I have a heart problem. That's why… that's why I was weak. That's why I lost so much time at school. That's why I was so shy and timid, so weak and afraid. That's why I was despised. That's why I was so filled with self-loathing._

She then saw herself struggle with a math problem - a problem that she knew by rote memory now, after having done it so many times. But this first time she struggled…

…struggled.

_And they mocked me. They mocked me because I struggled. It wasn't my fault, I had to miss school. My heart…_

She remembered that her heart made her weak in gymnastics. This, too, brought her mockery. Brought her grief.

_Grief._

She then remembered… she remembered a shining face from the crowd of students. A face that immediately put one's heart, even a broken one, at ease. A heart that was filled with love by a caring face. A face that glowed… a face that cared…

_It was her face._

_Her._

_Ma-… Ma… Ma-…_

She struggled to form the syllables of the name. She was clutching at her chest even harder, and tears poured forth from her eyes.

_Ma-… Ma… Mado…_

Her pink eyes that radiated happiness. That cheerful smile. Her cring personality.

_It hid… it hid her feelings of doubt… as I grew to know her, I realized that I was not the only one who was so full of doubt, not the only one who was so full of anxiety. I was not the only one searching for a purpose in life._

She then remembered the attack. She was walking home, from a miserable day at school. Her grief, though abated somewhat by the glowing radiance of the girl that smiled, was not enough for her to escape her grief. She contemplated, not for the first time in her life, her suicide. That was when that horrible thing appeared, an odd curiosity that resembled the Arc de Triomphe. She thought she was going to die… curious, it is, how one who was just contemplating suicide should fear for her own life. That was when she appeared, and another as well. But the most important thing was that _she _appeared. And for the second time that day, her face shone radiance into Homura's soul.

_Ma-… mado-… kaname…_

They grew to know each other over the month.

_But then she died. Why… why did you have to go sacrifice yourself? You didn't have to… not for me… not for me…_

_No. She didn't have to sacrifice herself. She did not have to. No. She didn't. She didn't. She didn't have to. No…_

But then that's when she remembered _it._

_Incubator…_

She did not know, after all of this time, whether or not her coming to know Madoka was the chance of fate, or if this alien, this thing from another world, had planned it all out. Had planned to allow Madoka and Homura to meet. Had planned to have Homura's one embodiment of hope to die. And that's when it moved in.

…_no. Madoka reached out to me on her own. The Incubator merely knew a good opportunity when it saw one._

_Wait… her name…_

_It was Madoka. Madoka. Kanamae Madoka. Madoka Madoka Madoka Madoka Madoka._

_Madoka. _

_**Madoka.**_

Everything seemed to fade away around her. Her images of her classmates, of her teacher, of Madoka, of the creature. It all faded away, and she felt illumination. It was not bright, but she felt it all the same. She felt the illumination that comes with knowledge.

The strange, pale girl that claimed to be her went up to the chalkboard and began drawing out a chart. It mapped several things to each other.

_Good. We have now illuminated a small part of who you were._

_Are?_

_No, were. The Homura you saw is you, but is also long gone in the past, dead in all senses of the term. She has been completely erased by you._

_Oh…_

_Well, as I was saying, we now know that you were hospitalized for some time. A heart condition, yes? And that when you returned to school, you were received rather cruelly. That was when you first met her. Kaname Madoka, the one that filled you with so much hope and joy. The girl whose mere presence filled you with light. The one that filled every hole in your life. And she saved you. She protected you, from other and yourself. And then, in order to give her life purpose, she fought against the darkness in this world, played a role in the Incubator's play. A role born both from her desire for meaning, and her genuine need to be kind. A true heroine, if one was ever born. And now then, now that is illuminated, we shall…_

Homura had her face in her palms. She was crying, this time not just from grief, but from rage.

_Wh-… why are you making me remember… why? Why do I have to remember? Why?!_

_Because you want to remember. You are simply denying it because you do not want to know what is to come in your personal history._

_I… I'm filled with all of these feelings… I see Madoka… I hear her… feel her… smell her… but doing so not only fills me with pleasure, but also pain. I feel guilt. Guilt. What did I do to her? Why should I remember? Shouldn't it be enough to feel love from her, and not pain?_

_No. You must know, otherwise you may not know yourself. Now, we must continue._

_Now? _

_Yes, now._

She looked up, and saw that they were no longer there.


	4. Quartet: Intro & Act 1

Homura was now standing outside of a movie theater. However, this was one that she had never seen before; at least, it was one that she has no memory of seeing.

The eerie girl who claimed to be Homura stood by the entrance.

_Why are we here?_

_Because we are here to witness the further progression of your personal development, the continuation of your story beyond the point that you made the contract between you and the outsider, the being that goes by the name Kyuubey, a member of the race of life known to us as the Incubators._

_Incubators. Incubators. Hate._

_Yes, those are your thoughts, are they not? Your suffering can indeed be traced to the Incubators most clearly. However, before we continue to examine the effect on your life that they had, it is necessary to first understand the effect they had on the existences of Madoka, and the other three girls._

_The other three?_

_Yes. Do you not remember who they are?_

_I am sorry… I do not. _

_Or, maybe, you are choosing not to remember them?_

…

_Here, we go now. Onward, to the theater of Illumination!_

And once again, whether by the hand of an unknown force, or by the drive burning within her to discover her true nature, no matter what that may imply, the girl, this Akemi Homura, found herself once again in the footsteps of this eerie girl, this girl that claimed to be her.

After what seemed like many many days of wandering the aisles of the theater, they eventually stood before the doors, marked Theater 4. The thin banner above the doors advertised that the film showing was called _Magical Quartet._

_Magical Quartet?_

_Yes, Magical Quartet. Do you know that the term can both refer and not refer to you?_

_I do not understand._

_You will in due time. Now, let us go in and ifnd our seats; the show is about to begin!_

The doors swung open and by some unknown force, Akemi Homura found herself being swept inside. She closed her eyes, in sudden fear of her surroundings. When she felt herself stop moving, she was sitting in a chair in the third row, slightly towards the middle of the theater. She looked up, and saw that the screen had begun showing.

Nine. Eight. Seven.

Six.

Five. Four.

Three. Two.

One.

_Blink _

_To understand in entirety what is to come with you, you must first know what happened to others.  
_

_Magical Quartet_

_Act 1: Tomoe Mami_

Tomoe Mami. A victim of circumstance. A girl who dreamed of love and justice.

_And was fearful of loneliness._

Homura was surprised when she heard those words uttered to her left. She saw in the seat to her left a tall girl, blond hair done in two curls that seemed impossible to actually exist in the way that they were. She had a soft smile on her face, but her blue eyes depicted another emotion entirely.

_Akemi-san. Do you remember me?_

_Do I?_

_Yes, do you remember me?_

_Somewhat. Most of my recollections at the name Tomoe Mami are not very pleasant ones._

_Why is that?_

_Because they are mostly of annoyance and frustration._

_That is a shame. I'm sure that if you were more willing to work with others, you would not feel about me in the ways that you do._

_I could not possibly have worked with you. You would never have understood._

_And why is it that you feel that?_

_Because when you ultimately find out what I need your help for, you cave in to despair, and your grief consumes you._

…

Tomoe Mami: a victim of circumstance. A girl that made a wish to save her life. A life, though recovered, does not guarantee happiness. Because of the selfish desire of her wish - not once she thought of wishing to save her parents, or wishing to save both her parents and herself, but only wished to save herself - she was forever wracked by guilt and loneliness. Thus, the only way she thought that she could employ her wish to atone for her sin was to adopt the life of a defender of justice, the very image of a magical girl warrior.

_But I was alone, just as you, Akemi Homura._

Tomoe Mami would eventually find someone she could relate with, someone to be by her side - a Sakura Kyoko. However, it was not to last; overcome by her own grief and despair, she cast Mami away.

_And I was alone… alone again. You were always alone, Akemi Homura. But for me… loneliness was something I just didn't get used to._

The girl with flaxen hair was crying now.

It was a year later that she discovered Kaname Madoka. Indeed, in the first timeline, she was her partner, and with her she saved Akemi Homura.

_But it was from this newfound hope that deeper bitterness grew. And whether through bravado or despair, I met my end at my own hands._

_And that was why I could never work with you: eventually, you lacked the fortitude to continue on._

_And how are you so different? _

_Now, now, she's got a long way to go before she realizes that you two share much in common. But for now, the show must go._

The screen changed.

_Act 2: Miki Sayaka_


End file.
